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Surface muscle is one thing but intramuscular probes means sticking needles/fine wires into the flesh. MAers can be so squeamesh about such things. It would be nice to have whole body EMG ... coupled with time correlated EEG (preferably with subdural probes-more needles into the brain this time) to link mental states with muscular actions. Given those options I think getting folks to hop onto a force plate should be no problem!

Might want to hold off until fMRI gets into the millisecond time ranges and bypass all the needles and bore holes through the skull ... unless on simply cannot wait. Do let us know how it goes.

"In my opinion, the time of spreading aikido to the world is finished; now we have to focus on quality." Yamada Yoshimitsu

Well, 6 lead surface EMG tied into a force plate may suffice as a first approximation. fMRI studies like the ones you suggest have been done IIRC but they show roughly what you'd expect - activation of particular parts of the motor cortex etc when visualizing movement

In my opinion the physical roots of the skills associated with "intent" (i.e., ki and kokyu) really wouldn't be that hard to isolate and define. The problem is that the defining paradigms, etc., are fairly vague and scattered and most people have difficulty condensing and codifying the associated physical phenomena.

Hi Mike,

not sure whether you are saying it can be done or not
The physical roots of the skills must be the easiest to both quantify and measure. The non physical ie mental/psychological/hara is really hard to both quantify, measure, condense, codify etc. And as these skills are a combination of mind/body and spirit.
I for one am not going to hold my breath waiting for someone else to explain to me what is going on from a physics point of view.

You probably know as well as anyone, that this is a field ripe for investigation, but it is unlikely to happen anytime soon, when we cant even agree on the parameters of what we are doing.

not sure whether you are saying it can be done or not
The physical roots of the skills must be the easiest to both quantify and measure. The non physical ie mental/psychological/hara is really hard to both quantify, measure, condense, codify etc. And as these skills are a combination of mind/body and spirit.
I for one am not going to hold my breath waiting for someone else to explain to me what is going on from a physics point of view.

You probably know as well as anyone, that this is a field ripe for investigation, but it is unlikely to happen anytime soon, when we cant even agree on the parameters of what we are doing.

regards,

Mark

Hi Mark:

Well, I guess part of the problem is that the entire spectrum of "internal strength" skills is broader than most people think, if you break them down into isolated (but related) components. That means that the number of things you're going to measure as factors in I.S. will be fairly broad; i.e., there isn't a simple, isolated group of skills that can be readily measured in any investigation.

Most of what people are working on at this point in time are simple jin skills. There are varying approaches and IMO the easiest thing to do at first is to focus on the jin/kokyu skills ("kokyu", "aiki", jin, whatever; they're all aspects of the same thing). My point was, though, that yes these measurements are all capable of being made currently.

Even some of the "woo woo" stuff can be measured since it seems to be mainly related to the interaction of electromagnetic fields and peoples' own susceptibility/psychology. Not that I'm very interested in that aspect of it (don't have time to look too hard); my point is that there is no aspect of "internal strength" that cannot be measured with current instruments. People who view internal-strength and "ki" things as metaphysical will of course reject the idea that anyone can see their special unicorn, but that's life.

Well, 6 lead surface EMG tied into a force plate may suffice as a first approximation. fMRI studies like the ones you suggest have been done IIRC but they show roughly what you'd expect - activation of particular parts of the motor cortex etc when visualizing movement

Yes, I'm all for baby stepping into complexity instead of jumping with both feet into the deep end.

"In my opinion, the time of spreading aikido to the world is finished; now we have to focus on quality." Yamada Yoshimitsu

When you said that about the force plates, Daniel, I did a quick imagination-examination of the equation-modeling and was rapidly filling in the gaps of what would be needed, assumed, extrapolated, etc., in the modeling, but then I ran into a problem. The forces and their impact-angles on the force plates probably could not tell us much about the exact configuration of the body and body configuration/shape would have a lot to do with the alignment structured by "intent" that is such a keystone to internal strength skills. I.e., I'm not sold on force-plates, yet.

YMMV

Mike

Hi Mike,
yes you are right it probably won't reveal anything about the linkages but through measuring the ground reaction forces (grf) either under Iwao Tamura (left) or his mysterious companion might give a visual representation of the stuff or the interaction we feel when participating in these tests as either person. e.g. the feeling of not feeling the power when grounded and being pushed agains, t or that feeling of not being able to get to the ground when pushing, all should be reflected in the grf vector. Have to book some time on the plates when I have a moment and see. The approached it worked well for unraisable body - though that clearly more about vertical grf

Success or fail i'll bring back to the list - this is the western science process inch by inch up and down blind alleys we crawl eventually moving forwards.

Most of what people are working on at this point in time are simple jin skills.

How do you know that? Have you been working with most people? Have you been keeping tabs on what everyone out there is working on? Even those not associated with Aikiweb? Or do you like just relegating everyone out there to "simple jin skills"?

Quote:

Mike Sigman wrote:

There are varying approaches and IMO the easiest thing to do at first is to focus on the jin/kokyu skills ("kokyu", "aiki", jin, whatever; they're all aspects of the same thing).

Mike Sigman

How about defining the differences in those aspects of "kokyu", "aiki" and "jin". And the varying approaches. Why not explain to everyone here who is supposedly working on "simple jin skills"? Why don't you show the people your expertise in this area.

Hi Mike,
yes you are right it probably won't reveal anything about the linkages but through measuring the ground reaction forces (grf) either under Iwao Tamura (left) or his mysterious companion might give a visual representation of the stuff or the interaction we feel when participating in these tests as either person. e.g. the feeling of not feeling the power when grounded and being pushed agains, t or that feeling of not being able to get to the ground when pushing, all should be reflected in the grf vector. Have to book some time on the plates when I have a moment and see. The approached it worked well for unraisable body - though that clearly more about vertical grf

Success or fail i'll bring back to the list - this is the western science process inch by inch up and down blind alleys we crawl eventually moving forwards.

I'm thinking of something simple as an example of a question: If I push, for instance, a plate that is on the wall at shoulder height, I can draw my force by several types of manipulation, one of which would be a "groundpath" from my foot to the hand. While the plate may be able to recognize the impinging direction of the force, I'm not sure that it could tell the difference between jin/kokyu and a variation of normal force.

Similarly, I looked at your description of an unliftable body on your website before. Hold on I need to double check. OK, I would give do the unliftable body differently and my analysis would be different. So let me re-phrase it and note that we might have 2 different solutions to roughly the same results, so the analysis could be markedly different for two different ways of doing something. If you see what I mean.

I'm thinking of something simple as an example of a question: If I push, for instance, a plate that is on the wall at shoulder height, I can draw my force by several types of manipulation, one of which would be a "groundpath" from my foot to the hand. While the plate may be able to recognize the impinging direction of the force, I'm not sure that it could tell the difference between jin/kokyu and a variation of normal force.

a set of bathroom scales is a reasonable way to measure 'force' though i suspect the interaction with another is the key aspect because of the dynamic response characteristics.

Quote:

Mike Sigman wrote:

Similarly, I looked at your description of an unliftable body on your website before. Hold on I need to double check. OK, I would give do the unliftable body differently and my analysis would be different. So let me re-phrase it and note that we might have 2 different solutions to roughly the same results, so the analysis could be markedly different for two different ways of doing something. If you see what I mean.

I think you are spot on here, its a representative task to show possibilities for the gamut of such test and raises plenty more questions. Unfortunately for zealots (and I'm not implying anything here about list-ka) there is always the yes but what about this, that and the other can your so called science explain that - which has been my experience during my time in the Ki Society with some (but not all)

I agree there are lots of ways to apply the lift and methodologies to pass it as well. The example is useful in so far as it demonstrates that at least some of the stuff is measure able, would that i had time to do more - been meaning to get back to some of this stuff for 10yrs.

Wether helpful as a learning tool or not I dunno...personally I found it helpful to give me confidence to embrace a eastern training methodology knowing that it wasn't some mumo jumbo but a useful training paradigm.

Whether helpful as a learning tool or not I dunno...personally I found it helpful to give me confidence to embrace a eastern training methodology knowing that it wasn't some mumo jumbo but a useful training paradigm.

I definitely agree. What helps me personally is knowing that there is even more to it than the triangular analysis (which is a good one, though) and the ultimate solution involving jin/kokyu forces is sweetened by the mind's ability to manipulate force vectors not only within itself but within a firmly-attached unit structure (such as 2 people lifting).

True internal power in the context of Aikido requires singular action resonant with the source of creation. IP in the context of Aikijujitsu only requires the most efficient resonant or non-resonant control of uke. I don't believe asymptotic activation, a direct connection with the infinite, is possible in Aikijujitsu without nage harming himself in the process. I learned the hard way when I first began staffwork several years ago, I gave myself mild to moderate concussions doing yokomens the wrong way in solo practice. A few months of that will make anyone learn Aikido somewhat quickly. Luckily I can teach it now in a way so others don't have to suffer the same experience.

I would be interested to know what Bagua man says (he often seems to say something like "now I do this, then I do that"), in particular when he touches his head an points downward (around 00:36). Anyone care to translate ?

Ludwig,

At 00:36, this master said:"It is my brain that controls my wick(core)." Here I'm using the word "core" but actually he used the word "wick" (like the wick of candle) to represent his core (straight line paralel to his spine), that's why he used his finger to point and move down. Hope this helps.